"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep," Obama cautioned. Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level, Obama smashed through racial barriers and easily defeated ...

<quoted text>Would you be talking about the recession caused by the Democrats' Marxist subpriime housing mortgage underwriting program that collapsed the economy after 2 years of oversight by Democrats Dodd and Frank?Thought so.Do you listen to yourself?

Looking back, Keith Hennessey, Bush's current chief economic adviser, said he and his colleagues had done the best they could "with the information we had at the time." But Hennessey did say he regretted that the administration had not paid more heed to the dangers of easy lending practices.

And both Paulson and his predecessor, John Snow, say the housing push went too far.

"The Bush administration took a lot of pride that home ownership had reached historic highs," Snow said during an interview. "But what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost."

For much of the Bush presidency, the White House was preoccupied by terrorism and war; on the economic front, its pressing concerns were cutting taxes and privatizing Social Security, a government retirement and disability benefits program. The housing market was a bright spot: Ever-rising home values kept the economy humming, as owners drew down on their equity to buy consumer goods and pack their children off to college.

Lawrence Lindsay, Bush's first chief economic adviser, said there was little impetus to raise alarms about the proliferation of easy credit that was helping Bush meet housing goals.

"No one wanted to stop that bubble," Lindsay said. "It would have conflicted with the president's own policies."

"A search of the area by U.S. forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. Former CIA officer Gary Berntsen, who led the CIA team (consisting primarily of CIA Paramilitary Officers from Special Activities Division) in Afghanistan that was tasked with locating Osama bin Laden, claims in his 2005 book Jawbreaker that he and his team had pinpointed the location of Osama bin Laden. Also according to Berntsen, a number of al-Qaeda detainees later confirmed that bin Laden had escaped Tora Bora into Pakistan via an easterly route through snow covered mountains to the area of Parachinar, Pakistan. He also claims that bin Laden could have been captured if United States Central Command had committed the troops that Berntsen had requested. Former CIA officer Gary Schroen concurs with this view and Pentagon documents are suggestive."

A former Delta Force commander, using the pen name "Dalton Fury", who was present at Tora Bora has written that bin Laden escaped into Pakistan on or around December 16, 2001. Fury gives three reasons for why he believes bin Laden was able to escape:(1) the US mistakenly thought that Pakistan was effectively guarding the border area,(2) NATO allies refused to allow the use of air-dropped GATOR mines, which would have helped seal bin Laden and his forces inside the Tora Bora area, and (3) over-reliance on native Afghan military forces as the main force deployed against bin Laden and his fighters. Fury states that the Afghan forces would usually leave the battlefield in the evenings to break their Ramadan fasts, thereby allowing the al-Qaeda forces a chance to regroup, reposition, or escape.

The strategy, as with the whole Afghan campaign, was to limit the number of American boots on the ground.

Instead Afghan fighters would operate under the direction of the small CIA/Special Forces teams, supported by air power.

But at Tora Bora, the Afghan mujahideen proved unreliable allies. They refused to fight at night leaving al-Qaeda to reoccupy ground that had been painfully won.

At one point they agreed a ceasefire which may even have secretly assisted Bin Laden. "I don't think they were properly trained," recalls the anonymous Special Forces soldier. "And I don't think their heart was in it."

Berntsen asked for 800 US Rangers to be placed between Bin Laden and the border, or to enter the mountains from the Pakistani side. His request was denied.

"Once you have to ask Washington for assistance, then all sorts of political calculations enter in andů unfortunately that's what occurred," Berntsen told the BBC.

Interesting, you republicretards blame President Obama for the state of the economy, but when it was fine, the federal gov't was running a surplus budget and we were paying of the national debt, the sitting President who was responsible for the federal budget gets no credit.....

LMAO. Three Georgia counties are suing the giant British lender HSBC for aggressively targeting minorities for mortgages that were very likely to fail. And fail they did wreaking havoc on the tax bases of Fulton,Cobb and DeKalb Counties__greater Atlanta. Novel approach and one that actually places the blame exactly where it belongs.

<quoted text>so what you are saying is that the Republican Controlled Congress and the Bush administration were all the bytches of a homosexual from Mass.Interesting.I wonder if Barney at least gave George a reach around?

<quoted text>There will be no solution as long as half the country isn't feeling the cost of the insanity of the government. If inflation hits those paying for the government, those not paying for the government get more food stamps, for instance. They do not feel the effect as long as we are continually forced to pay for the effect of inflation on them.If we do not increase the number of people paying income taxes, then there will continually be increasing support for any Marxist that forces the people who are already the only people sacrificing and working and supporting everything and everyone to pay for everyone else.Before any discussion of changes to the rates happens, there should be agreed upon an increase in the number of people paying income taxes.It's insane to increase the number of people on the dole while the number of people paying for the dole decreases. Collapse is certain.I do believe the Democrats intend on collapse. That will be the excuse they use to install a totalitarian government and eliminate the Constitution.

Fair tax-Federal sales tax-- across the boards. Stop Punishing the WORKING (and Earning it) classes. Make them ALL PAY, from ladder rung A through ladder rung Z-No exceptions.Double Nevada's.

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